26. Asphyxiated Truths
Asphyxiated Truths
SAPPHIRA
Syoran angled his sword at my throat, peering down at me beneath furrowed brows. “You handed him off without question! As if he were nothing more than mere goods to exchange with greedy hands!”
The wrath that clung to his near-black irises was warranted.
I had turned my back on them. I had offered Caspian to Sorva without a second thought, and because of my stupidity, guilt threatened to devour me whole.
Did I regret giving myself to the enemy if it meant seeing Lorelie again?
No. But contrition coiled around my throat like a starved serpent, ready to asphyxiate my essence for what I had done to the two men who had pulled me onto their ship and nursed me back to health.
Yet my decision to turn my back on them had come without pause or a moment to consider the repercussions of what would follow.
It was as if the devious Other had opened her palms to reward me with a reality I knew was too godsdamned good to be true, and I had jumped anyway.
While my logic flared at the recollection, something ancient stirred within me, whispering temptations in languages I didn’t understand but acted on.
Something dark.
“I know, Syoran. I know,” I breathed, swallowing all the uncertainties swathing my mind.
“No apology can justify it. What I did was treasonous, irrefutable, and I know the Damned will judge me accordingly. I’ll take whatever punishment they place upon me without rebuke, for it is deserved after all Caspian did for me. ”
“Perhaps we should proceed with your repentance early,” Syoran growled, angling the edge of his steel where Rohen had placed hers.
A sound that mirrored his came from my right, but where his clung to humanity, hers seemed far more animalistic. “Kao”—Lorelie moved in front of me, wrath billowing from her in thick plumes—“I would suggest lowering your weapon.”
“Or what?” he spat, his dedication as Caspian’s second beyond apparent. “You wish to shield her from the consequences of her wrongdoings? If that is the case, I have no issue laying you to rest alongside her.”
“I would prefer to avoid showing you a side of myself I can promise you will not want to see.” Shoulders rising and falling with every attempt to level herself, Lorelie took a step toward Syoran. “Put it down. I will not prompt you again.”
He started to speak, but a soft touch stopped him, fingers curling around his forearm with the ability to rival even the most formidable storms. Honeyed locks brushed back by the stroke of his hand, the male’s seafoam gaze settled on Syoran.
Where I expected the connection to draw forth more ire, Syoran seemed to melt in its wake, as if the former prince were the only one able to coax him from the cliff of destruction he toed.
“As much as it is tempting,” Kaelivan Marellan hummed, offering me only a glance with his utterance, “we have far more important people to focus on. Rohen has stormed off with a death wish, and we hold the God of Luck’s blessing.
Rage cannot cloud our senses right now, Syoran, not when we have an entire continent riding on our shoulders. ”
Exhaling heavily, my friend slowly dropped his blade, but his loathing remained. “Fine. Though I cannot consider kindness as soon as she sets foot on my ship.”
Metal slid against the scabbard as he guided his sword back into its home, his lethal glower fixed on me even as Kaelivan spoke once more. “And it is not expected, for there are things I wish to see done to her after the decimation her idiocy caused.”
“I want to apologize to you as well—”
Shadows cloaked his frame, once-vibrant irises transforming into a violent storm.
“It is not your sorrow I want,” he snarled.
“If there is anything I wish for, it would be to carve your still-beating heart from your chest and feed it to the God of Death in exchange for my lover’s return.
Consider yourself lucky that I elect to be so kind.
” His chin snapped toward Lorelie, potent venom coating his tongue.
“Considering both Syoran and I would rather see the woman you desire to protect dead, I believe the two of you should continue your trek—”
“No,” my other half interrupted, knuckles whitening as she clenched her fists at her sides. “I will not be escorting any of you to the docks. My attention is needed elsewhere.”
“What?” I asked, peering at her incredulously.
Glancing over her shoulder, her mystical honeydew stare found mine. “I have vows I must uphold.”
“Vows?” The single syllable carried the pitch of my unease. “To whom?”
“The Goddess of the Sea,” she answered without pause.
“Ellira has entrusted me with her daughter’s safety.
I cannot allow Rohen to stumble into a place of vulnerability.
Her heart and mind continue to battle, and with Sorva’s unrelenting hold on Caspian Vayne, she may very well be stepping right where Sorva wants her—in her snare. ”
“Wait,” Kaelivan redirected his pointedness to her, “what would you know of Rohen and Caspian? You’ve hardly been around long enough to form such—”
“Opinions?” Her bite was evident as she craned her head to the side like a predator assessing its prey. “Good thing they aren’t such.”
The heir’s jaw flexed at her challenge. “I suppose it is time for me to pose the questions I had before our arrangement, unless you’ve… forgotten them?”
“Do not demean me as if I am a fool, Kaelivan. Everything I said in the ballroom is true, as there is no time for misleading information.” Lifting her arm, she turned it over before extending it.
Fingertips curling upward, dark talons replaced her nails, and an iridescent sheen armored her flesh.
“While our discussion may have been interrupted, all I wished to disclose surrounded the prophecy. So, to provide an answer to what remains unsolved, no, I am not from this realm.”
My breath hitched as I blinked, trying to make sense of her insinuation. “W-What are you?”
Lorelie spun toward me, settling her palms against my cheeks.
“I will be able to tell you one day. One day, when Sorva does not harbor the ability to crush my trachea whenever I speak my truth. But for now, please know that all I have done is try to protect you,” she brushed her thumb along my bottom lip, “which is why I need you to trust me a little longer. I may not share any lineage tied to Wraelira, but my heart resides here with you. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for you, Sapphira Maris, and once these lands are free, I plan to enlighten you of everything I have been forbidden to share. ”
My throat bobbed with my emotion, but as Syoran melted with Kael’s presence, I did the same with her. With a sigh, I leaned forward to rest my forehead against hers. “Okay.”
Her touch trailed down my jaw before she settled two fingers under my chin. Drawing my attention to meet hers, she offered me a soft smile before grazing her nose against mine, and in the next breath, she stole the air from my lungs.
Mouth welcoming mine in a tantalizing kiss, she swept her tongue along my teeth.
I groaned at the notion, opening wider for her indulgence, and she responded in kind.
Devouring more and more of my essence with a hunger she seemed to have never learned to curb around me, her lips continued to mesh with mine.
The proximity allowed me to greedily inhale her dangerous yet refreshing scent, like the tinge of smoke after a rainstorm, and I drank it in as if it were a freshly opened bottle of rum.
Drawing back, her hesitation became apparent as she graced me with one more fleeting kiss. With an exhale, her lids fluttered as she held my stare, palms still cupping my face. “I need you to go with them to the docks.”
Unwilling to argue with her, I simply dipped my chin in agreement.
Hand slipping around the back of my neck, she pulled me toward her to press her lips against the crown of my head. As if savoring my scent as I had hers, she lingered, but not long enough. With her touch slipping from me, she squeezed my shoulder once before glancing at Kael and Syoran.
“If you wish to know more about the prophecy and all that awaits this realm, then you take her with you, and you do not allow anything to happen to her. I may be an extension of Ellira’s love for Rohen, but I yearn for Sapphira, and if she falls because of your negligence, my kindness will expire just as quickly. ”
They looked at one another, seafoam blue meshing with inky brown, two colors many would deem unfit at first glance. But the longer I stared, the deeper the longing became. It was dangerous, but prominent, an unfurling of something just as beautiful as it was deadly.
Syoran caught my analytical gaze, his scowl reforming as he muttered, “Fine. Whatever.”
Lorelie smiled and nodded before nudging me toward them.
“Thank you.” Squeezing my hand once, she paused briefly as I moved toward them, but then her utterance came with a weight I did not wish to consider.
“Oh, and also, if Rohen and I are not back before chaos ensues, as it will, because you are passing off a god-blessed relic to another Divari, then I need you to leave. Set sail and do not look back.”
Opening my mouth to argue, a gentle breeze swept through the forest, and with it, she vanished. Yet, in the rustle of the trees, I swore I could hear her voice, her vow.
“I promise I will find you. This is not goodbye.”